Peace (law)

In English and Anglo-American common law, the peace, sometimes called the king's peace or queen's peace (Latin pax regis), is the legal concept of the maintenance of public order under the authority of the Crown. The idea began in Anglo-Saxon law as protection extended to the king's own household and retainers, so that harming a person under that protection was treated as a serious crime or tort. Over the tenth and eleventh centuries the protection widened to cover set times such as holidays, particular places such as highways and churches, and certain classes of people such as legates, and by the Norman Conquest it had come to mean the general safeguarding of public order across the realm. Responsibility for keeping the peace historically rested with the King's Bench and local officers such as sheriffs, coroners, justices of the peace and constables, and in modern Britain it remains a distinct duty of the police, separate from ordinary law enforcement. The concept still figures in English law, including the 1989 case R v Secretary of State for the Home Department, ex parte Northumbria Police Authority, in which the Court of Appeal held that prerogative powers could be used to maintain the peace of the realm.